C. S. Yogananda

How we invented the Airplane

Success might be much hastened by an association of searchers in this field of inquiry [flight], for no one man is likely to be simultaneously an inventor to imagine new shapes and new motors, a mechanical engineer to design the arrangement of the apparatus, a mathematician to calculate its strength and stresses, a practical mechanic to construct the parts, and a syndicate of capitalists to furnish the needed funds. It is probably because the working out of a complete invention requires so great a variety of talent thatprogress has been so SLOW.

Fermat’s last theorem

After more than three centuries of effort by some of the best mathematicians, Gerhard Frey, J-P Serre, Ken Ribet and Andrew Wiles have finally succeeded in proving Fermat’s assertion that the equationXn + Yn = Zn has no solutions in non-zero integers ifn ≥ 3. Each of the four mathematicians made a decisive contribution with Wiles delivering thecoup de grace. The proof, as it finally came to be, is in some sense a triumph for Fermat.

Mathematical contributions of Archimedes: Some nuggets

Archimedes is generally regarded as the greatest mathematician of antiquity and alongside Isaac Newton and C F Gauss as the top three of all times. He was also an excellent theoreticiancum-engineer who identified mathematical prob lems in his work on mechanics, got hints on their solution through engineering techniques and then solved those mathematical problems, many a time discovering fundamental results in mathematics, for instance, the concepts oflimits andintegration. In his own words,“… which I first dis covered by means of mechanics and then exhibited by means of geometry”. In this article we briefly describe some of his main contributions to mathematics.

A Report on Artin’s Holomorphy Conjecture

The purpose of this paper is to present a report on the current status of Artin’s holomorphy conjecture. For a fascinating account of how Artin was led to defining his L-series and his ‘reciprocity law’ see [19].